What I never thought I'd do...

About a week ago, I received an email that asked a bunch of questions about me. One was "What is one thing you have done that you never thought you'd do?" I wasn't sure at the time what I would have answered, but now I know what I would answer even 20 years from now if asked the same question. Sunday night, I was able to be in the delivery room with my friend/aide while she had her baby, and I got the cut the cord! It was definitely one of the most amazing moments of my life.

The past few weeks have been so busy and tiring, so let me recap:

Our grade level aide Michelle has had a rough pregnancy, and finally, the month baby was due, her husband was deployed to California with the army and wasn't here to help her. So my grade level all pitched in and helped with the 3 false alarm trips to the hospital, watching her 3 year old during those trips, and being on call 24/7. Saturday she was finally admitted and induced. I was out of town, so when I returned I decided to relieve Camill since she'd been at the hospital forever and still no baby. By the time I got on Ft. Hood, I got a call that baby was coming. I literally ran into the hospital, and the nurse was waiting for me in the hall, and within 15 minutes, baby Robbie was here and I was crying and cutting the cord! It was just amazing. He is the sweetest little baby, with a head of dark hair and the tiniest little head! And he has a stork bite between his eyes that looks like the UT longhorn symbol! I brought mommy and baby home Monday night and they are doing great.

Besides having baby duty the past week, I had my pdas - formal observation -and it went really well. Glad it's done!

We went to Brenda's this past weekend for Payton's birthday and Luke woke up so sick Saturday. He missed the build a bear event, but later that night felt well enough so Brenda and I took him back to make his monkey that evening. (FYI - took him in Monday and he has double ear infections. He was so miserable Sunday night and Monday morning! But he's doing great now, just missed one day of school with daddy)

Enjoy some photos - a little baby, a little birthday, a little hanging out... a little bit of everything from the past weeks! (in no particular order)

Build a Bear, trip #1 with Carsyn, Payton, and Mia. Carsyn and Mia both named their animals Bella and we didn't realize it till on the way home! Payton named her longhorn Brown. We also made Luke a get well puppy, and named him Buddy.

Mia putting the heart in Luke's puppy

Trip #2, with Luke making his monkey, which he named Luke!

Holding Robbie for the first time... and the photo was taken by his 3 year old sister!

Big sister Gwen with baby Robbie at the hospital

Paging Dr. Jill... You are needed in Delivery!

Last Thursday, Michelle invited the third grade teachers over and made us fried tacos (so good!) to thank us for all our help. It was actually cool out, so everyone showed up in their hoodies. 

Playing at Michelle's - (standing) Allyse, Tiffany's daughter and "Lute's" buddy from school (she calls him that all the time! She is also in kinder, but a different class); Gwen and Luke

Learning to multi-task at an early age -driving while on the cell phone. Later she also added drinking to the tasks! 

Just hanging out in Michelle's yard

Sweet Berry Farms

Last Saturday was our family outing to Sweet Berry Farms, a strawberry/pumpkin patch about an hour from our house. We had never been there, but I found it online last year and wanted to check it out. The weather was beautiful, although it was over 90 so we ended up sunburned unexpectedly, but there was a breeze and thankfully I was over my allergy problems or that could have made me miserable. We started at the hayfield maze, opting for the child one, not the one in the shape of TX that someone said took them 4 hours! We spent about 20 minutes in it, with Luke leading the way and Mia hitching a ride on daddy's shoulders while carrying a long, green stem. Luke was so proud when he led us out of the maze! Next we headed to the hayride. We rode on a short hayride that took us to a large field of flowers. For $1 you could get a cup to fill with fresh cut flowers. I don't know right now what kind they are but sure someone out there can tell me from the photos. Some kind of gerber daisy maybe? Again, Luke was leading the way, picking out flowers for me to cut, and not even freaking out at all the bees around us. At this point, you could also pay $2 for Okra, but seeing as we don't like it, we skipped it. But somehow Mia ended up with a large, stolen piece of Okra when we climbed back on the hayride! This part of the hayride took us through trees and fields where we went right by goats and donkeys. I was sitting right behind the tractor, so by the end my legs were black from dirt! We took a short break and shared a homemade strawberry lemonade and then it was time for Luke to ride the horse. I really thought that after we paid for the ticket, he'd get up there and refuse to ride, but he surprised us by getting right on Puddin, the beautiful brown horse. He later said the horse ride was his favorite part of the day. Before leaving, we tried to take lots of photos on the hay and pumpkins. Luke was all about the photo opportunities but Mia was either too preoccupied or too tired to "pose" with Luke and the pumpkins. Before leaving, we bought some little gourds and some homemade strawberry ice cream.

We were tired, sunburned, and so dusty and dirty, but everyone seemed to have fun, even Marc. I loved seeing the kids, especially Luke, experience new things like the hayride and horse ride, and just them being happy little kids. We get so busy and tired at the beginning of the school year and all week long, so I am glad we made this day all about them. Now, I have to convince Marc to go back in the spring to pick strawberries! Not sure that I'll make jam like mom always did, but it would still be fun to go strawberry picking again!

There are way too many pictures for me to comment on them all, but they are pretty self explanatory!


This is the kiddie maze through the hay field

This picture just makes me laugh! Luke was too funny, chillin on the haystacks while Mia wanted nothing to do with photos!

Flower field where we cut our cup of flowers

Dress Rehearsal

Mia's costume came in the mail yesterday so we tried it on her. Seeing hers on, Luke finally decided to put his on. He's been weird about not wanting to try it on. They were too funny, because they sat and played in their costumes for the next 2 hours. I had to be sneaky about taking photos because Luke would have hid if he'd seen me doing them! Mia will have black antennae and tights added to her costume, and Luke has a sword. 

On another note, I am so glad it's Friday. The past 2 weeks have been exhausting with being sick, but I am now on steroids and antibiotics and allergy meds, so I am feeling so much better! The only problem is that the steroids make me wired- I was up so late last night! I even had energy to finally go work out again after work today. We have had such a lack of family time lately, and since we're nearing basketball season, I decided we needed a day out. Tomorrow, weather permitting, we are going to Marble Falls to a pumpkin farm. I will take lots of photos and post about it when we get home.

For some reason, the kids were pulling themselves around the house on their bellies using their arms. They are too silly together!

Miss Independent - wouldn't let anyone feed her yogurt

Dress Rehearsal for Halloween

Photos

Luke and his new friend Gwen. She came over for a while today while her mom went to the hospital to have her baby. Turns out she didn't have him, but the kids had fun together for a while at the park and having a picnic.



This is Mia's new game. She runs to her room to get changed, then hides from us behind her crib. She's so silly!

Luke helping Mia take her shoes and socks off... He gets so annoyed with her sometimes for messing with his things, but then he turns around and is so sweet to her!

TGIF!!

What a long, tiring week. My allergies have been the worst they have been in a very long time, and I think I'm working on a sinus infection on top of that. I haven't really eaten in about a week either. I have woken up every morning this week saying "Is today Friday?" and so glad today really was. My plans for this weekend were to go to dream dinners tomorrow morning and do nothing much else all day but start reading a new book. Now, though, I'm on call for babysitting. My friend, and our third grade aide, is pregnant and due in a month, but started labor today after school. As much as some people wouldn't want baby to come early, this little guy has no more room to grow and is ready to come. Plus, her husband is army and is being sent Tuesday to CA for a month and isn't allowed to come home when baby gets here, so we're all hoping he comes before daddy is shipped off! My job is to babysit the 4 year old daughter to help them out. Thankfully we had her baby shower this past Wednesday already!

I have some photos to post, but it's not happening tonight. Mia has a new game - going to her room like she's excited to get changed, but then runs and hides behind her crib!

Luke got his first progress report this week and is doing great! He still loves getting up every morning and going to school to see his friends and learn. The best part of having him in my friend's class is that every day I get to hear a little story of something he did, while other parents don't get that same joy! 

Off to bed. Not sure if I'll get a babysitting call at 3am, so I'd better get sleep while I can!

School Pics

Luke's teacher sent me some photos she's taken of Luke. I feel like most of my photos on here are of Mia, so I'm giving Luke his own blog entry of school photos!

The boy to the left of Luke, grinning widely, is his new best buddy Nicholas. His brother is also in my class.


This is from the freedom march on 9-11. Notice he is right by Nicholas - they are never far apart!

No more #23

Well, what a day I have had! I thought I should update what happened with my new Ike child. First, he was pretty excited about the football, so I thought the day would go well. I will give the quick summary of how it went instead!
*He refused to do any work
*When asked to participate, he layed on my floor under my table and wouldn't get up or talk to me
*When I went to find someone (administration, counselor) to help us out, he broke a pencil and was acting like he was going to hurt someone with the broken part
*When an AP came back with me, I had to clear out my class and spent the next 40 minutes trying to get him off the floor!
*He left with the AP and I was a bit upset still. After lunch, he was sent back, before I was ready to take him back.
*5 minutes into our first lesson after lunch, he started mocking me behind my back, then in front of my face.
*When I said something to him, he laughed and continued on.
*He was "smoking" a piece of paper. I took it from him, and he started "smoking" a pencil. When I took that, he laughed again and smoked with his fingers and said "What are you going to do, cut off my fingers?" Then he said "I'm flying high, high as a kite" while smoking.
*I called and told the AP to come right away. She took him, and I never saw him after that.
*Found out once he was in the office, he said/wrote the most obscene, vulgar things about everyone and was going to get suspended, but his dad withdrew him instead.

Wow, how does a 9 year old get to be like that? So he's gone, and it really is a good thing. I tried to be positive, but he obviously has some issues besides a hurricane. So thanks for the nice thoughts. And by the way, the football was left in my room when he took off, so so much for that nice gesture!

#23

Well, I got student #23 today. Our limit is 22, and 3 of us now have 23 kids in third grade. Now we just have to wait a month and keep our numbers that high to get another teacher, which probably won't happen. Let me tell you about #23 though. He is coming to us from Alvin, TX because of Ike. We got 17 kids enrolled today that are staying at the boys and girls club near my school. I found out my new one is dyslexic and was in an anger management program. So now I have two very angry boys, and this one has even more reason to be angry since he's homeless. I think he may only be staying a week or two, but you never know what they'll find when they try to return home. Even with all his problems, I have to remember that he's still just a 9 year old boy who left everything and is staying in a strange city with strange people. He told me he's scared this his dogs are dead since they left them behind in their home. I asked what he missed the most and he said his football, so Luke and I made a stop on the way home and picked him up a new one. He's going to really struggle in my room, since I have so many kids and it's way above his learning level. But I will do the best I can just to try to keep him somewhat happy and not too angry. Keep everyone in your thoughts. Some of these kids came crying so hard, and some parents didn't want to leave their kids behind and were just so embarassed that they didn't have nice clothes to wear.

Greetings!

My kids are growing up way too fast these past few weeks. Luke is doing so well as school today, and one of the kinder aides told me at lunch how cute he is, and how smart he is. She had to test him today, and said he did great, and had a conversation with her. What an improvement from last year! So proud! He continues to love his teacher and his new best buddy Nicholas.

Mia goes a mile a minute lately. She's really started to repeat everything we say and seems to have a new word each day. It's great when we know what she wants, but this morning when she woke at 5:30 and just kept crying "me me me" forever and we had no idea what she wanted, it got a bit frustrating! Today's word is "bubbles!" She now says "please, bye bye, more" very well, but I do miss the frantic rubbing of her belly to say "please" in sign language. And thanks to aunt Brenda, she can say "again" in sign too. She's so determined too. She will go to the fridge and yell and hang from the handle until someone opens it to get her string cheese.

Her favorite things to do now are wearing other people's shoes and getting her own snack and bowl from her cupboard and bringing them to us.

To update from the past days, we all had a great visit at the Elliotts, despite a few bumps and bruises. Luke somehow landed face first at the bottom of the steps in the trim around the door and had nice black and blue lines on his face. Then not long after, we found him bleeding on Carsyn's top bunk, saying he'd accidentally been hit in the nose with the ladder. Good times. We stayed longer than planned on Sunday just so we could relax and play. Thanks for the house guys!

My class is going well. I am at capacity again, but tomorrow a kid or two may be moved out. And for those that volunteered to be temporary homes to Pippi, be warned that the Pippi's are coming! I hope to get them mailed the next day or two. And some others of you may be getting contacted if I need a few more willing babysitters!!

Cheese!!!!!

Can I have a snack please? I got my own food and bowl!

These were some of the most frightening ducks I've ever seen, because they were so huge! Before I was even out of the car, they were marching up to us ready to attack!

While Brenda and I were unpacking in her upstairs room, the bigger kids kept busy with instruments while Mia was wearing a giant plastic flower on her head.


Another of Mia's favorite things - reading! She will sit in her chair and turn pages while making noises. I'm getting her ready for that 3rd grade reading TAKS test early!


Where's Mia? There she is! (And she'll say "there she is!" if you ask where she is!)